Those darn kids. They are so crazy, growing up so quick and everything. Just the other day, Tallulah was giving me some advice on configuring the wi-fi for SpaceBook or some such. Hard as it is to believe, she is all done with grade 1. So is that little imp Sandy, whose parental I saw yesterday. Sandy’s smaller looking and acting than Tallulah which makes it hard to think of her as a schoolgirl. Sandy’s big sister, however, is unimaginable as the middle schooler she will be later this summer.
I realized I had missed the yute’s progression having not seen them at the Great Temple in a while and mentioned as much to their parental. Not that it is any of my business, but I just had not seen them. The PU took no offense and reported that their trips to the Temple had been suspended when the PU self-diagnosed an addiction to religion and a temptation to use it just for social purposes. Having gone further than my business extended, I restrained myself from asking how else and for what else would one use it?
People talk about addictions like they are a bad thing. Drinking your paycheck when baby needs a new pair of shoes is a bad thing. Depending on an organization or institution to help your life make sense and have order is a human thing. That doesn’t mean everybody has to be religious, but I think we fool ourselves when we claim to be totally independent of anyone or anything else. We shut ourselves off from tremendous opportunities to be in relationship with other people when our goal is complete independence.
Being in relationship, and being in a position to contribute to a relationship, is really when I can live into who I am as a person. Forget being complete, because that is not happening in this lifetime. “Having all my needs met” is also a non-starter with or without someone else’s help because guess what? I can always come up with an unmet need. The point is to realize that I don’t have it all, not by a long shot, but I have this and I can share it with you. If being religious gives me a way to do that, boogie on. If not being religious does that for you, boogie on your own self. Either way, as long as I don’t deceive myself into believing that I am complete or independent, I’ll be fine.